Patients for Safer Nuclear Medicine Coalition

The Patients for Safer Nuclear Medicine Coalition advocates on a patient safety issue called extravasation, which occurs when radiopharmaceuticals are mistakenly injected into the soft tissue rather than the vein during diagnostic testing or therapeutic nuclear medicine procedures. It can cause injury, misdiagnosis, and incorrect course of treatment or delivery of a therapy. Current NRC policy specifically exempts incidents like these from medical event reporting. As a result, information is not shared with patients, their treating physician, or any regulatory body.